Priorities
by clair beaubien
Summary: When Sam's hurt, Dean's just not a people person. Tag scene to Sacrifice. Dean takes Sam to the ER. Outsider POV.


The guy came into the ER looking like he went through the wringer. Pale, anxious, damp and muddy from the knees down.

And he wasn't even the patient.

The _patient_ looked like he went through a meat grinder.

We were busy. Colleen was on the intake desk and I was calling patients and assigning cubicles. I didn't know if it was that weird meteor shower we had an hour or so before or if there was full moon I hadn't noticed, but like my Mom used to say - the crazies were crawling out of the woodwork and the house was falling down.

We were_ busy._

"Hey, my brother got jumped." The guy started right in before Colleen had a chance to ask him anything. The brother, the patient, was leaning one shoulder against the wall next to the desk and the brother doing the talking had a hand on him that looked like it was the only thing keeping him upright. His face was dusky, marked with bruises and lacerations, and his eyes were red.

Honestly? My first thought was 'what's he on and is he going to get violent?'

"Okay, we'll need you to have a seat and fill out some paperwork." Colleen said. She held out our standard clipboard and questionnaire and he pushed it aside.

"Yeah, great." He said. "Look, the guy took a bite out of his arm, and I think it might've nicked a vein. God only knows what that guy had on his teeth, so I'd like my brother looked at before he goes septic."

I love it when people tell us our job.

"And we will look at him, sir." I said. "Just have a seat and fill out the paper work and we'll -"

The guy turned away from us with a snort of disgust.

"C'mon, Sam. We'll find somewhere else."

"They're only doing their job." Sam said. He sounded lucid, alert and oriented. He sounded tired but he didn't sound like someone coming down from drugs.

"And I'm doing _my_ job." His brother answered. "I'm not going to have you sitting eight hours in a waiting room with his bacteria roaming around in your bloodstream doing God knows what. We'll find somewhere they don't have their head up their -"

"_Dean."_ Sam said with some emphasis, and that got _Dean_ to shut up. Then Sam looked at me and Colleen. "Sorry. He's had a hard day."

_He's_ had a hard day? The guy who only looks exhausted and not the one who looks like he got run down by a riding mower?

"What happened?" I asked. Also known as, _'tell me why I should take you before the cholecystitis, three minor car accidents, two dog bites, two minor stabbings, five panic attacks, the week-long migraine, the could-be-appendicitis, and the kid with the bottle of superglue stuffed up his nose'._

_Also_ also known as listening to his story for lies or omissions or rehearsed a hundred times because he's here just to get painkillers.

"I _told_ you." Dean started, glaring at me, but Sam got him to shut up again with just a short wordless sound that must've been some code between them for 'let me handle this, will you?'

"I don't know - I was out walking. The meteorites or whatever they were, you know? This other guy came out of nowhere. Knocked me down. Took a bite out of me." He started to lift up his arm, probably to bring my attention to the gauze wrapped around his wrist and the bandana around his hand. But then he dropped it back down like it was just too heavy. "Then this other - it was a woman - she hit me over the head with a bottle or something glass - it was -"

"What's with the needle marks?" I asked. His story sounded rehearsed and the eight needle pricks, fresh ones just above the gauze, weren't helping his cause any.

He looked down at his arm and then back up at me. And there were tears in his eyes.

"He took my blood." He said, and he said it through clenched teeth. His voice had turned hoarse, like he was angry and maybe even trying not to cry. I saw Dean's hand curl tighter around his shoulder. If this part was rehearsed, they were good. "Eight - eight vials, syringes, of blood. Not full, just - just - an inch or so each."

"Did he inject you with anything?"

"No. No, he just kept taking the blood. My blood. He said - he said - " He turned to Dean and made a sound that sounded like a chuckle, still through clenched teeth. "He said he only wanted to be loved."

"He _what?_" Dean demanded. He must've had the same thought as I did.

Before I could express that thought, Sam's eyes widened, "_Dean?"_ and he started to slide down the wall.

"Hey! Hey - no collapsing before I've decided if we're staying or not." Dean said as he instantly pushed his shoulder under Sam's arm and slowed his crash to my floor. I came out from behind the desk to his side.

"Did he assault you any other way?" I asked as I took his uninjured wrist to check his pulse.

Sam mumbled, "What?" like he didn't understand what I'd said. Which maybe he didn't, he was looking a little unfocused.

Dean asked, "What?" like he understood the question but was confused by it. And then "_WHAT?"_ like he got my precise meaning. "Why would you even ask that?"

I finished counting Sam's pulse. It was strong but rapid.

"A guy knocks another guy down and says he's looking for love? I ask the question."

"No!" Dean answered for his brother. But then he asked it of his brother. "No?"

Sam laughed, actually laughed. "Dude, when you found me, did it look like _anybody_ was getting some love?" He laughed again and answered me, "No. Just this," gesturing with his bandaged arm again.

"All right, good. Okay." I made a decision. "I'll take him back." I stood up and turned to Colleen. "Will you grab me a wheelchair and we can -"

But Colleen looked past me with a 'you were saying?' look and I turned back. With that shoulder under that arm, Dean already had his impressively tall, impossibly weak, brother on his feet. And they were already walking, if unsteadily.

"Great." Dean said, sounding like he was holding back his irritation that I'd taken so long to see things his way. "Which way?"

I love it when people treat me like the hostess at Denny's.

I huffed a sigh, held my hand out to Colleen for the clipboard of paperwork and turned to the swinging doors.

"This way."

There was an empty, curtained cubicle just a few yards past the swinging doors. Dean managed to keep Sam on his feet all the way there and set him smoothly onto the stretcher. The fact that it seemed like Dean was used to hauling his bigger brother around like he was only half his size put another checkmark in the 'they're probably faking this' column.

"All right, wait here. I'll be back." I told them.

"Back? Back when?" Dean asked with not a little threat in his tone. "I didn't trade the waiting room for a gurney just to still wait twelve hours."

I love it when people act like they have me on retainer.

"Back after I situate another two patients in their cubicles." I answered him, not hiding my own irritation. "After I check on the other patients who have been here longer than you. After I see what new patients have come into the department since I brought you here. After I check with the doctors if they need anything. _I'll be back."_

I slapped the clipboard against his chest and left the cubicle.

God save me from people who think they're the only patients in my ER.

Twenty minutes later, which is lightning fast by ER standards on a busy night, I went back to the brothers. The head of the gurney had been flipped up forty-five degrees and Sam was sitting up with his legs stretched out. He had a cup of water in his undamaged hand and a latex glove blown up and tied off like a balloon on the mattress next to him. He didn't look any healthier or any more with it.

"Where's your brother? Gone looking for me?" I asked as I opened drawers and pulled supplies to get started on him.

Sam hmpf'd me an amused rebuke. "He woulda _found_ you."

Well, that didn't tell me where Dean had gone, or how long he was likely to be gone for. I took Sam's arm and a pair of scissors and sliced off the gauze around his wrist and hand. His wristwatch had been removed already.

"All right, I'm going to get started cleaning out these wounds, then I'll stitch them up. That is, as long as Mr. Sourpuss doesn't come back and dispute me."

Just like that, Sam stiffened and the temperature in the cubicle seemed to go down a hundred degrees. I looked up at his face and the scowl he had focused on me.

"You don't talk about him like that." He warned me, in a voice that had dropped about as low as the temperature between us.

His expression was threatening, but nothing in the rest of his body language was; he wasn't making a fist or crushing his cup of water or pulling his arm out of my hands. I exhaled.

"You're the one who looks like he got a pitchfork shoved into his sinuses, not your brother. You should be worrying about _you._"

He hmpf'd me again. "Interesting metaphor." Whatever that meant, it was all he said. I kept my comments to myself and inspected his wounds.

The bite wound looked nasty. It had ripped a chunk of skin and some flesh from the inside of his left forearm. His veins looked intact though, which was good.

"What happened to your hand?" There was a long, clean incision right across the palm.

"He needed blood from my hand, too."

"Did you contact the police?"

"Dean took care of it." Sam answered. He sounded like that was the last word on the topic.

Well, 'took care of it' could mean Dean called the police or that Dean murdered the attackers. Right now, my money was on the second choice.

"He's kind of gruff, isn't he?" I said, wondering if I was going to be frozen down again for impugning the guy. I turned back to the cabinet for a bottle of antiseptic solution and a plastic basin to begin flushing the wounds.

"That's just how he gets when he's worried." Sam said. He said it casually, not like I'd just maligned his hero. His eyes glanced down to his improvised balloon and then up to the curtains like he was expecting Dean any second, and it hit me. Mr. Sourpuss had made his brother a latex glove balloon. "You'd actually like him if you knew him. He just - he's had a bad day."

"Worse than you?"

"Yeah, worse than me."

Just then the curtain opened and Mr. Sourpuss walked in.

"How's it coming?"

Wow, he sounded like I actually might know what I'm doing.

"He'll live." I said.

"Yeah, great." Dean answered me, with a dismissive tone and barely a glance. "Sam?"

Oh, he'd been asking his brother, not me. Well, excuse me all over the place.

I love it when people act like I've only got a walk-on role and not a speaking part.

"She's going to clean them out and stitch them up. I'm fine." Sam answered. "How're you holding up?"

What was it with this guy constantly worried about Mr. Sourpuss? I don't care how bad a night he'd had, Dean didn't have a scratch on him.

"Are you going to start him on antibiotics?" Dean demanded of me instead of answering his brother.

I love it when people act like they've been to medical school just because they've watched ER. I held my irritation and kept my eyes on my work as I slid a basin under Sam's arm to catch the antiseptic as I started to clean his bite wound.

"As soon as the doctor has seen him, she'll decide -"

"Where's the doctor?" Dean demanded, again.

I love it when people think barking at me will make me jump to.

"She's with the hit and run down the hall." Before he had the chance to drill me on how bad that patient was, I told him, "And since the little boy might lose his leg, I think maybe he's more important than your brother."

I would not have believed the change if it hadn't happened right in front of me. Dean's expression switched just like that from snarl to concern. Even his physical size seemed to lessen as he let out a long breath.

"Is he gonna be okay? The kid?" He actually sounded like he cared.

"He'll live, but we're waiting for orthopedics to make a determination on his leg."

"What about the driver? They catch the driver?"

"Not yet."

There was another shift, just as subtle, but just as clear. He stood a little taller. Not the looming rage-brother of moments earlier, but still - he stood taller. Straighter.

"Where? What kind of car? You have a description of the guy?"

"Why? You think _you _can find him?"

He lifted his eyebrows and gave me a '_you know it'_ look.

"So, you're a police officer?" I asked. Police officers, even off-duty, generally announce themselves at the window. For sure this guy would have let me know if he was a cop.

He only tilted his head in a _'does it matter_?' gesture.

"I don't have as many rules to follow."

I looked to Sam for some confirmation. I realized I'd been ignoring him for a few minutes, but Sam didn't seem to mind. When I asked, "Is he for real? Can he find the guy?" Sam smiled. I'd seen that kind of smile before, on family members when patients finally come to, show some spark, or give some sign that they're not ready to die just yet.

That's why Sam was so concerned about Dean. Whatever had happened to Dean, Sam'd been looking for that spark.

"You have no idea." Sam told me.

Since I was anxious myself to gut the scumbag who left a five year old bleeding and suffering in the gutter of a city street, I decided to take a chance.

"Give me a minute."

I set aside my supplies, pulled off my gloves and tossed them in the trash can, and went out to the front desk to get the details. I wrote them down and brought them back to the cubicle.

Where I found Dean at Sam's bedside, examining Sam's wound. Not just looking. _Examining._

"Got a complaint?" I asked. "Or should I say, _another_ complaint?"

He looked back at me and arched an eyebrow.

"Still waiting on those antibiotics, sweetheart." He said, but his tone was amused and teasing, not pissed. Sam might've been right. I might just like this guy.

So I played along for a minute, I huffed and rolled my eyes. But then I held the paper out to him.

"You make this happen, you can have the whole damn pharmacy."

He took the paper and turned back to Sam. "Okay, neighborhood street, late model BMW, older guy behind the wheel, gray hair, suit and tie." Then he turned back to me. "This is all?"

I shrugged. "Dark night. Hit and run and a broken child. Hard to get details." I added, "You might look for a teddy bear stuck in the grill…"

His jaw muscle tightened so hard, I feared for his teeth and for the next person who pissed him off.

"You take care of Sammy. I'll be back."

_Sammy. _Wow, the big guy was actually the little brother. Who knew? I guess that explained the balloon. I was just about to say something to that effect when Colleen burst through the curtains.

"Allie - there's an MVA coming in. Multiple victims. At least four critical."

That was my cue to boot these brothers farther down the list of importance. I'd only just looked toward Dean though to break the news and he ordered me - _ordered_ me -

"_Go."_

I love it when patients understand priorities.

When I got back to their cubicle, a couple of hours later, it was empty. Dean was gone. Sam was gone. The latex glove blown up like a balloon was gone. The only things left were the remains of sutures and bandages I hadn't used that were tossed in the garbage can.

A quick check of Sam's chart showed me that no other hospital staff had stitched him up, either.

"Colleen, did you see those two guys who came in with the bite? The human bite?"

"They didn't come through this way." She told me. "Maybe they went to the cafeteria?"

"Maybe…" I echoed but I didn't think so. I didn't think I'd be seeing them again.

I turned to go clean their cubicle for the next patient when Colleen said,

"Did you hear they found the guy? The guy who hit the kid? It's all over the news. He turned up in front of the police station, car and everything. He even had the kid's teddy bear that got stuck on the car. He said some guy was after him and the police needed to protect him. Guess he was practically hysterical about it. Y'gotta wonder what he was on. Oh - hey, we're missing some antibiotics from the cabinet. Did you give them to the bite wound guy before the MVA came in?"

"Yeah, yeah, I did." I said. "I'll make the note in his chart."

Yeah, Sam was right. I actually liked Dean.

The End.


End file.
